Ryan looked up sharply from the board that lay on the living room floor between them. “I not cheatin’!” he said, his little eyes ablaze with indignation.
“No, of course not,” she soothed, cursing her quick tongue. “That’s not what I meant, honey. It’s just that your eyes take pictures and your head stores them, so you never forget anything you see.”
Duh. The look on Ryan’s face conveyed plainly that this was obvious. He probably thought it was the same for everyone. Ophelia snorted at his expression. Nothing amused her more than the looks on Ryan’s face. They made her wonder if her own baby would have been so amusing, so precocious, so damn smart. Of course he—or she—would have. Any child of Vinny’s was bound to be a prodigy.
For the fifth time that day, she caught herself reaching for her cell phone. Don’t call him. She was the one who’d insisted that they live apart. She’d refused to be the thorn in his side, the weak link in their marriage, any longer. She had walked out of their life together because he was better off without her. Calling and talking to him like they were friends would be counter-productive.
Except that she missed him so much that she physically ached for him. She dreamed about him every night. She ate like a bird, with little appetite to speak of and had timed how frequently she thought about him—every three minutes, or less. All that had been going on for four weeks now.
She wanted so badly to tell him about the steps she was taking to improve herself. Even with her wrist still healing, she went to fitness classes three times a week and to church with Penny and Joe every Sunday. She had volunteered with Penny at the homeless shelter for veterans. She’d cut back on her hours at work in order to look after Ryan so Penny could save on daycare. It was the least she could do since Penny and Joe had taken her in on a moment’s notice. Best of all, she’d discovered that she wasn’t such an awful role model, after all. Even Joe had said she had a special way with little kids—though come to think of it, that might have been Joe’s idea of a joke about Vinny’s age and relative height.
No, she was good with Ryan. If she weren’t, he wouldn’t want to hang out with her all the time. She would make a good mother, after all. And she was dying to tell Vinny about her epiphany.
Except that Vinny hadn’t called. And Ophelia had her pride. She rolled over onto her back, stared up at the family room ceiling, and sighed. What if he’s waiting for me to call him?
“I winned,” Ryan stated, matter-of-factly.
“Of course you did.”
His piquant face loomed over hers. “Is I good today?” he demanded.
Being good was high on his list of objectives since Santa Claus would know if he wasn’t, and Santa was due to bring toys in just two days. “You were an angel,” Ophelia declared.
He frowned his disgust. “I wanna be a dinosaur.”
“Well, then you’d have to be a dinosaur that doesn’t eat other dinosaurs.”
“Like a stegosaurus.” He leapt to his feet, grabbed the book on dinosaurs off the coffee table, and plopped down with it.
Seeing Ryan engrossed in the book, Ophelia teased the phone out of her pocket and stared at the empty display. She could call Vinny and leave a friendly message. That way he wouldn’t just forget about her. What if he never thought about her the way she thought of him? What if he found somebody else!
She’d dialed his number before she realized what she’d done. Just to hear his voice, she told herself. He was probably at work anyway, so she’d just end up getting his voice mail.
“Lia.” The sound of her name being said with so much warmth and welcome brought a lump to her throat. “How you doin’, cara mia?”
The endearment made her eyes sting. “Good. Great, in fact. Really good. You?”
“Oh…I’ve been better.”
The sorrow in his voice strummed her heartstrings. “Why, what’s wrong?”
A bitter chuckle sounded in her ear. “Nothin’ now, cara mia.”
Relief buoyed her heart. Did her call mean that much to him? God, she hoped so. “I’ve missed you,” she admitted, aware that Ryan had pulled his head out of the book and was now looking at her.
“I’ve missed you more,” Vinny said, causing her heart to leap with joy. So he hadn’t forgotten about her. “How’s the wrist?”
“All better. Are you at work?” she asked.
“At the commissary. I’m lookin’ for something to take to the XO’s Christmas party—you know, the one he has every year?”
“Of course.” Her heart clutched at the memory of past parties and the fun they’d had together.